Racetrack's Story
by Half-Pint
Summary: How Racetrack came to be....the Jewish side of Newsiedom. Not a Mary-Sue, I PROMISE.
1. "Get out of here."

A non-Mary-Sue/girlie take on Racetrack's Story written by Half-Pint. I always wondered about Jewish people on the streets, so I decided to write about one….and since my favorite newsie happens to be Race…why not him?  
  
As usual, I don't own newsies, blah blah blah.  
  
  
  
I was born Yosef Abramowicz on July 4th, 1882 in a little shtetl (Yiddish word for home) in downtown New York City. Its ironic that I happen to have been born on Independence Day in the Land of the Free because to us, the orthodox Jews of Manhattan, we weren't free, nor were we independent.  
  
My parents, Tziporah and Yitzchak were driven out of their Russian home as a young couple with my older sister, Tova, in tow. She was two years my senior and one of the most beautiful girls anyone had ever seen. Her long carmel colored hair was always in two braids running down her back and she had the most beautiful green eyes I had ever seen. As a child, I always felt as if my parents favored her, she was beautiful, smart, popular and born in the old country while I wasn't. Looking back, I see it is just a childish jealousy, but nevertheless, I felt it.  
  
My story really begins when I was nine years old. Even though we were dreadfully poor and living in a disgusting tenement full to the brim of Jewish families from the old country, babbling off in Russian, Polish or Yiddish, my parents still dutifully sent me to Hebrew school where I sat with my head in my hand painfully reading over stories from the Bible. We always wore our yarmulkes when inside the temple and I often forgot to remove it after leaving, which is not a big deal as many men wear theirs at all times. My father never felt this was necessary as it caused problems with all the anti-Semites in New York City. That day, was the day I forgot.  
  
As I exited shul (Jewish word for school/place of study), I whistled a tune and looked longingly in the direction of Sheepshead Bay. I reached in my pocket and discovered a shiny nickel. Smiling to myself, I would just tell them I had gotten caught up in talking to one of the boys and we got into a theological debate. Now I realize what a horrible excuse that was as I was never one to even care about theological debates.  
  
I balanced my books in my arms as I ran excitedly passed the ragged beggers and rich members of society taking their strolls in the nice spring weather. My parents had taught me gambling was a sin and G-d frowned upon it. I asked the Rabbi one day after a friend's father had taken the two of us to watch the horses at the racetrack, and he agreed with my mother and father, but that didn't stop me. I loved seeing the horses whiz around the track and the thrill when the horse I had bet on won. Even if it didn't win, it was that pure adrenaline of not knowing what was going to happen next.  
  
I got to Sheepshead Bay in record time, slammed down my nickel and pulled my books tightly in my lap as I watched the race begin. Sadly, my horse lost that round and I did feel a little guilty as a nickel could have bought something a little more practical like eggs for Mameh (Yiddish for mother) or a book for Tateh (Yiddish for father) or silk hair ribbons for Tova, but I shrugged it off. Knowing I was going to be late for dinner, I raced back home, hugging my books to my stomach. As I was about to turn the second to last corner, I ran into two tall boys. I barely came up to their shoulders as I was small and they were rather large. As I plowed into them, my books flew in every direction.  
  
Embarrassed, I looked up at them, "Sorry."  
  
The looked at each other and grinned. As I proceeded to pick up my things, one of them picked up one of the books that had been chucked the farthest.  
  
"Is dis yours?" he asked. He had blonde hair, brown eyes and a freckled face. He sounded like some sort of immigrant…perhaps Irish.  
  
I nodded and thanked him. As I reached for the book, he tossed it to the other boy…the one with dark brown hair and green eyes. They shook with laughter as I asked for it back. His only response was throwing it into the mud.  
  
'Dat was Tateh's book, his own Tateh gave dat to 'im." I thought bitterly as I picked it up, knowing it was beyond repair and I was going to get it when I returned home.  
  
"Wheah ya goin', kyke?" one asked, noticing my yarmulke.  
  
I tried to silently leave. I wanted to become invisible, to sink into the ground. I felt lower than a rat.  
  
When I didn't answer them, I felt one of them grab me by the collar and shove me into an alley. He pushed me against the wall with all of his might, crushing me. He dealt me a swift blow to the face while the other punched me in the stomach. As blood spurt out my nose and a newfound cut they had created, they laughed.  
  
"Fucking Jews." The blonde said shaking his head. "Don' evah come back t'rough heah, yid. Nevah."  
  
I nodded. They exited the scene, leaving a bloody child, a damn nine year old child in a bloody heap…all because I had forgotten to take off my yarmulke….  
  
  
  
MORE TO COME. 


	2. Isolated

Chapter Two  
  
I ran to my house as fast as my beaten body would allow me. I hobbled up the stairs, past the two Chassids that sat arguing endlessly about what is a sin and what's not and endless other theological debates. Luckily, they paid no attention to me as I made my way to our apartment with my muddy books in hand.  
  
I opened the door to Number 14 slowly. The old hinges squeaked their greeting as I opened it wider. Mameh sat on the kitchen table, her sewing things spread out mending one of Tateh's shirts. I tried to sneak past her and get to the room Tova and I shared, but she caught me.  
  
"Think you can sneak by me without saying hello, Yosef?" She asked with her usual smile.  
  
"No." I answered flatly, trying to shrink into the corner and prayed to G-d to turn me into a mouse right then.  
  
She looked up at me and her jaw dropped. The scissors in her hand fell to the floor with a loud bang and her mouth was so agape I could almost see her tonsils.  
  
"YOSEF! What happened to you? Were you fighting with the Rosenbaum boys again?"  
  
I nodded slowly. I don't know why, but back then I didn't want her to know it had been because of who I was. I guess I was ashamed to think that she might be somehow ashamed of me.  
  
She surveyed me and ripped the books out of my hands. Tateh's book was on the top, its one fine pages were now encrusted with mud.  
  
"Do you know how long this has been in our family, young man?" She screamed, her brown eyes on fire. I nodded meekly. "Just go to your room. I can't even look at you right now. Get cleaned up and don't bother coming out for dinner."  
  
I nodded, on the verge of tears. I escaped to my room, which Tova was already in, occupying her bed. She was reading, something my father thought girls shouldn't do, so she kept a secret stash of dime novels underneath her bed. Nice Jewish girls were supposed to learn how to cook and clean and have babies and keep the house kosher, not read, according to our father.  
  
Tova looked up at me and surveyed me. A small giggle escaped her.  
  
"What?" I asked angrily, going to my closet and ripping my only other shirt off its hanger.  
  
"You're so in trouble." She replied. Even though we were close, we always liked to get each other angry, like any normal brother and sister. "I can't believe you fought with those kids again."  
  
"Just shut up." I told her gathering my clean clothes.  
  
"Someone's a little touchy." She answered rolling over to face the wall.  
  
"Look, you don't know anything about it." I replied, marching off to the washroom and cleaning myself off.  
  
As I washed my face and changed my shirt, I looked at myself in our old mirror. I had a big black eye and cuts all over my face.  
  
Was I lower than everyone else because I was a Jew? Was that the way things really were? I didn't know. All I knew at that moment was my body hurt and I felt lower than the rats that crawled up and down the alleys.  
  
I spent a good hour in there, thinking things over.and thinking things nine year olds shouldn't think, knowing feelings children shouldn't feel.  
  
When I walked into my room, Tova was already gone and I could hear the clanging of dishes and my family's laughter in the other room. I covered my head and fell asleep, feeling more isolated from the world than ever. 


	3. The Children's Home

Chapter Three  
  
I woke up the next morning, my stomach grumbling terribly. I stretched and yawned and made my way to the kitchen, completely ravenous.  
  
I stumbled into the other room, looking for something to eat. My eyes fell on the clock and to my surprise, it read it was already 10AM. The house was completely still. I looked to the table, where I found a note in my mother's scrawled writing:  
  
Yosef,  
  
Your father, sister and I have gone to Coney Island for the day. Your Tateh decided you should be punished by not being able to do anything social, even with us, for the next month. You will go to shul and Hebrew school and that's it and you will earn the money to buy him another book soon. We'll see you when we get home..and your father would like to have a talk with you. I have left you lunch in the ice box.  
  
Love, Mameh  
  
I read the note and sighed. An entire month without baseball? Without my friends? Without our secret trips to Sheepshead Bay? I rested my head on the table and finished off a piece of bread I had begun.  
  
After eating, I went to my room, where I tried to get lost in some of my sister's books, but I reasoned I wasn't as good as the imagination stuff as Tova.  
  
I stretched out on my bed, trying to figure out something to do when I heard a knock at the door. It was the old man who lived one flight down who talked to my father often.  
  
"Oh, Tateh's out." I told him dismissively.  
  
"No..Yosef, that's not what I came to talk to you about." He told me with sad eyes.  
  
I looked at him questioningly and sat down when he motioned for me to. He took a seat across from me.  
  
"You know we've been having problems with anti-semites in the area..and, well..your family was attacked on their way home." He explained.  
  
My brown eyes opened as big as saucers.  
  
"ATTACKED?!" I almost yelled. "How so? They're all right aren't they?"  
  
He shook his head.  
  
"I'm afraid they've been killed..."  
  
My heart started beating faster, my pulse began to race.  
  
"NO! You're lying." I yelled, feeling tears well up in my eyes. "They're not dead. G-d's not that cruel."  
  
He just stared at me while I threw my fit. I went around the house, yelling, screaming, kicking everything, cursing G-d, telling Him how much I hated Him.  
  
After I had calmed down a little and was contented to sob on the kitchen table, the Old Man scooted closer to me and put an arm around me in a very grandfatherly way.  
  
"Where am I gonna live?" I asked him, looking up, my brown eyes red from crying.  
  
He swallowed hard. "The Jewish Children's Home."  
  
My eyes grew wide. There? Why there? Those children were the disgusting and filthy ones who sat in the back of the Temple during Sabbath.  
  
He told me to pack my things, which I did immediately, not wanting anything to do with this house anymore. He slowly took me the mile to the Children's Home, which was on the outskirts of the Hebrew Quarter.  
  
As night fell, I listened to the other children breath calmly in and out. I tossed and turned and finally gave up on sleep. I tiptoed over to the window and sat on the sill and looked into the sky.  
  
"G-d, I hate you." I told him out loud. I vowed that the prayers they would make us say didn't mean anything anymore. I would gamble every chance I got. I would do everything I was ever told was wrong.  
  
That night, their faces kept haunting me. Tova running, her long braids falling behind her. Tateh playing baseball with me, Mameh endlessly fawning over us children. And they were gone. All gone. Never would I see them again.  
  
After I told G-d I hated him, I made a vow to escape as soon as I could. I wasn't Jewish anymore..sure it was an ethnicity, but a religion too. If I left, no one would ever have to know I was Jewish. 


	4. I'm Italian Now

A month later, I found myself in The Refuge. I had escaped from the Jewish Quarter three weeks earlier and had been living on the streets, stealing my food. I thought I had gotten pretty good at it too, until an old society man caught me. I tried to run, but the Bulls caught me before I could get away.  
  
I had been in the Refuge a week, not speaking to anyone. I hadn't figured out an alias yet, so I pretended I was deaf. That was easier, the rest of the kids left me alone.  
  
One night, I heard a commotion as I was trying to sleep.  
  
"Kelly's back!" the kids yelled and clamored around a tall blonde boy of about 10 years old. I studied him curiously from my spot, but looked away when he met my eyes.  
  
"Who's dis?" he asked, his New York accent strong.  
  
"Who knows." A boy of about thirteen who was determined that I wasn't deaf and kept trying to speak to me answered. "We think he's from Italy or somethin'. He don't talk..but we know he ain't deaf, 'cause he jumps when people bang stuff. He prolly don't speak no English."  
  
'Italian? Good one.' I thought. Now, all I had to do was think of an Italian name. I wracked my brain for one, but I couldn't think.  
  
"Yeah? Lemme try." The boy said waltzing over to me. He picked up my playing cards, my only possession, which I angrily ripped out of his hands, probably looking like some sort of savage to him and the rest of the boys.  
  
"Damn. Touchy. Well, anyways, I'm Jack Kelley. Who are youse?" he asked.  
  
For some reason I wanted to answer him. I felt compelled to, like someone was calling me to.  
  
"Higgins." I answered, barely audible.  
  
"He can talk!" the other kid yelled gleefully.  
  
"Shut up," Jack told the boy angrily. "What'd you say your name was again?"  
  
"Higgins." I answered. It had been the last name of the only non-Jew my parents had ever introduced me to. He was a little old man who sold my father a suit once. I had no idea what kind of last name Higgins was, but it wasn't Jewish, and that's all that mattered.  
  
"Are you'se Italian?"  
  
I nodded, which prompted a laugh out of the boy.  
  
"Den how come you got an Irish name, kid?"  
  
'I should have never opened my mouth.' I angrily chastised myself as my face drained of all color. I sloppily put together a story in my head.  
  
"I'm Italian, but I was adopted by an Irish family when I was real young and they died." I answered quickly.  
  
He nodded like a tragic story of that nature was old hat.  
  
"So, what are you in for?"  
  
"Stealing."  
  
"Me too. You look like you ain't eaten or had a bath in a while. You have a job?"  
  
I shook my head.  
  
"Aftah we get out, you'se gonna be a newsie."  
  
"Newsie?"  
  
He explained to me quickly what that was. I had seen poor street rat kids like that before, hawking headlines for a penny. It didn't seem like much money, but a penny was a penny more than I had now. I quickly agreed and I was quickly nicknamed for my love of the tracks. Racetrack. Racetrack Higgins.it was nice. It fit.  
  
As I tell you this story, I am all grown up. I'm married to the most beautiful woman in the world, whom I met of course, at the tracks. She's the only one who knows my secret (and of course she would have to know..certain things only she sees would give me away). To everyone else, I'm Racetrack Higgins, or Antonio Higgins..the gambling, racetrack loving Italian. 


End file.
